Global Left Midweek – March 21, 2024

On the electoral front, surges and splits

Portside
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Desperate Gaza children march against bombing and food shortages. Credit, Video Elephant
  1. Economics Must Change!
  2. Jenin Resistance
  3. On the Electoral Front
  4. IWD Was a Big Day in Mexico
  5. Mozambicans Fight Gas Giants
  6. Lessons About Fascism from Chile’s Struggle
  7. Solidarity With Diane Abbott
  8. Labor and Climate: Oil Workers in Trinidad and Tobago
  9. De-Growth Debate
  10. Video: Haiti Webinar

 

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Economics Must Change!

Jayati Ghosh / International Monetary Fund (Washington DC)

Sociopolitical tensions and geopolitical conflicts are creating societies that may soon be dysfunctional to the point of being unlivable. All this requires transformative economic strategies. Yet the discipline’s mainstream persists in doing business as usual, as if tinkering at the margins with minor changes could have any meaningful impact.

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Jenin Resistance

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Mariam Barghouti / +972 (Tel Aviv)

Incessant Israeli incursions into Jenin refugee camp since October 7 have killed nearly 100 Palestinians, including many civilians. But as repression surges, the children of the Second Intifada are taking up arms.

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On the Electoral Front

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IWD Was a Big Day in Mexico

Lexie Harrison-Cripps / Al Jazeera (Doha)

By midday on March 8, 2024, small groups of women dressed in lilac, wearing purple bandanas tied around their wrists, hair and necks, started to congregate in Mexico City. Soon they comprised an 180,000-strong crowd, marching and chanting “We are not one. We are not ten. We are a s***load, count us right!” together on International Women’s Day. 

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Mozambicans Fight Gas Giants

Ilham Rawoot / Waging Nonviolence (Brooklyn)

In Mozambique’s northernmost province of Cabo Delgado, multinational giants TotalEnergies, ExxonMobil, Eni and others are developing three liquid natural gas, or LNG, projects. Already the industry has brought devastating consequences for communities, the land and climate. But the international Say No to Gas! campaign won’t let it get away with its actions without a fight.

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Lessons About Fascism from Chile’s Struggle

Rene Leal / Social Sciences (Basel, Switzerland)

This 2020 essay, while dated by the left’s failure to win a plebiscite for a proposed Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile in 2022, is still timely and useful for understanding the continuing rise of the far right in the global south and north, and resistance to it.

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Solidarity With Diane Abbott

Labour Hub (London)

Hackney Labour activists have joined the growing calls for solidarity with their local MP Diane Abbott. The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP, who has received more abuse than any other parliamentarian.The Conservative party’s biggest donor told colleagues that looking at Diane Abbott makes you “want to hate all black women” and said the MP “should be shot”, the Guardian reported.

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Labor and Climate: Oil Workers in Trinidad and Tobago

Ozzi Warwick / Global Labour Column (Johannesburg)

The Global Labour University Online Academy training course assisted the trade union movement in Trinidad and Tobago to halt the attempt to impose a neoliberal policy and law. The knowledge, skills and materials from the course allowed the Oilfields Workers’ Trade Union to quickly analyse the policy and identify some serious concerns about the process and the contradictions within the policy. 

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De-Growth Debate

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Video: Haiti Webinar

La Via Campesina (Paris)

Peasant organization representatives and anti-colonial activists worldwide bring us up to speed on Haiti’s recent developments, as the nation grapples with a multifaceted crisis. We spotlight internal resistance efforts by Haitian organizations and the global peasant movement.